Power In His Presence

COMPARE AND CONTRAST THE HERMENEUTICS OF ALEXANDRIA AND ANTIOCH

The early church was characterized by two streams of Hermeneutical schools, one from Alexan­dria and one from Antioch.

Christians at Alexandria followed Hellenistic Jews in adopting Greek ideas. Gnostic influences, which dis­counted the material world as inher­ently evil, led to a spirituality which moved God away from his historical acts. The historical events were seen as just allegorical stories and that inevitably led to the gospel being eclipsed as an historical event. An “Allegory” is a symbolic representation.  Alexandrian school of interpretation elevates the literal words of Scripture and assumed that they were symbolic and of deeper spiritual truths. Their philosophical and historical traditions which were declared by Thucydides and Herodotus were always at odds with their religious traditions which were stated by Homer and Hesiod.  They relieved the tension by allegorizing the religious.

 One of the prominent students of this Hermeneutical school was Clement of Alexandria (c.150 A.D.) who claimed that there were five possible meanings.  The Historical meaning which concerned the actual event; The Doctrinal meaning which included moral and theological teachings; The Prophetic meaning which was  concerned with predictions and types; the Philosophical meaning which sees meaning in objects and historical persons; and the Mystical meaning which involved deeper moral, spiritual or religious truth found via symbols.  Origen was a student of Clement who sought to escape the crudities of lay people by taking everything symbolically.  He tried to make scripture acceptable to philosophers.  Origen’s approach was threefold in that the Literal meaning was the Body of Scripture, the Moral sense was the Soul of Scripture, and the Allegorical sense was the Spirit of Scripture. He believed that true exegesis was Spiritual (allegorical) exegesis. The Syrian School of Antioch on the other hand avoided letterism and allegories.  Lucian and Dorotheus were founders, around 325 A.D.  Arius and Eusebius studied at this school.  Diodorus, who was the first presbyter of Antioch until 378 AD, then the Bishop of Tarsus, also was part of the school at Antioch.  There exist many extant writings from the students of this ancient school.Theodore of Mopsuestia was a student of Diodorus who was intellectual and dogmatic.  He denied the inspiration of some books of the Bible, but he also denied Allegory. He glanced at and revered the essence of being circumspective with the scientific study of language (Linguistics). He resorted to studying the milieu and the circumstances enveloping passages in lieu of isolating verses in a passage.  John Chrysostom who was also called “the golden-mouthed” was a talented exegete and communicator who recognized inspiration and totality of the Canon.This School debated Origen’s Allegorical school.

The Syrian School–

·        Accepted a plain-literal and a figurative-literal sense of Scripture.

·        Measured passages of scripture as literal and not “letterists.”

·        Avoided the authoritarian exegesis of the Roman Catholics.

·        Insisted on historicity of Old Testament events.

·        Related the Old Testament and New Testament typologically, not allegorically.

·        Recognized Progressive Revelation.

·        Held that the bond between the Old Testament and New Testament is prophecy.

They emphasized the historical meaning of the Bible and so preserved the gospel as an historical event in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. Out of this grew the historical method of typology which saw the Old Testament events as foreshadowing the gospel without dissolving the Old Testament’s nat­ural, historical meaning. The Anti­och strand’s weakness was its ten­dency towards the subtle heresy of Nestorius, which split Jesus’ divine nature from his human nature and declared him to be not only of two natures, but also to be two persons.